Academic

Report Challenges Asian "Model Minority" Stereotype

By Kevin Maillard

A report  funded by NYU, the College Board, and other interested parties has raised good questions about Asian-Americans and higher education.  It challenges perceptions of Asian-Americans as categorically gifted in science and math fields, and of over-representation at elite colleges and universities.  Asians currently represent about 5% of the total United States population.  For population percentages of Asians at Harvard, Stanford, and Berkeley, more after the jump.

The 5% of Asian-Americans make for 18% of Harvard students, increasing to %24 at Stanford, and topping out at %46 at Berkeley.

Pertinent clips from the NY Times Article below:

The report found that contrary to stereotype, most of the bachelor?s degrees that Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders received in 2003 were in business, management, social sciences or humanities, not in the STEM fields: science, technology, engineering or math. And while Asians earned 32 percent of the nation?s STEM doctorates that year, within that 32 percent more than four of five degree recipients were international students from Asia, not Asian-Americans.

The report also said that more Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders were enrolled in community colleges than in either public or private four-year colleges. But the idea that Asian-American ?model minority? students are edging out all others is so ubiquitous that quips like ?U.C.L.A. really stands for United Caucasians Lost Among Asians? or ?M.I.T. means Made in Taiwan? have become common, the report said.

Asian-Americans make up about 5 percent of the nation?s population but 10 percent or more ? considerably more in California ? of the undergraduates at many of the most selective colleges, according to data reported by colleges. But the new report suggested that some such statistics combined campus populations of Asian-Americans with those of international students from Asian countries.

Full post as published by The Faculty Lounge on June 12, 2008 (boomark / email).